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From Los Angeles Times

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ATF promotes supervisors in controversial gun operation

The three, who have been criticized for pushing on with the border weapons sting even as it came apart, receive new management jobs in Washington.

by Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau

August 16, 2011

Reporting from Washington

The ATF has promoted three key supervisors of a controversial sting operation that allowed firearms to be illegally trafficked across the U.S. border into Mexico.

All three have been heavily criticized for pushing the program forward even as it became apparent that it was out of control. At least 2,000 guns were lost and many turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and two at the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Arizona.

The three supervisors have been given new management positions at the agency's headquarters in Washington. They are William G. McMahon, who was the ATF's deputy director of operations in the West, where the illegal trafficking program was focused, and William D. Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who oversaw the program out of the agency's Phoenix office.

McMahon and Newell have acknowledged making serious mistakes in the program, which was dubbed Operation Fast and Furious.

"I share responsibility for mistakes that were made," McMahon testified to a House committee three weeks ago. "The advantage of hindsight, the benefit of a thorough review of the case, clearly points me to things that I would have done differently."

Three Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesmen did not return phone calls Monday asking about the promotions. But several agents said they found the timing of the promotions surprising, given the turmoil at the agency over the failed program.

McMahon was promoted Sunday to deputy assistant director of the ATF's Office of Professional Responsibility and Security Operations — the division that investigates misconduct by employees and other problems.

Kenneth E. Melson, the ATF's acting director, said in an agency-wide confidential email announcing the promotion that McMahon was among ATF employees being rewarded because of "the skills and abilities they have demonstrated throughout their careers."

Newell was the special agent in charge of the field office for Arizona and New Mexico, where Fast and Furious was conducted. On Aug. 1, the ATF announced he would become special assistant to the assistant director of the agency's Office of Management in Washington.

Voth was an on-the-ground team supervisor for the operation, and last month he was moved to Washington to become branch chief for the ATF's tobacco division.

The program ran from November 2009 to January 2011, with the aim of identifying Mexican drug cartel leaders by allowing illegal purchases of firearms and then tracking those weapons. Nearly 200 were recovered at crime scenes in Mexico, and in December two semiautomatics were found at the scene of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry's slaying in Arizona.

No cartel leaders were arrested.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, are reviewing the operation.

Steve Martin, an ATF deputy assistant director, said he urged McMahon as far back as January 2010 to end the operation, and was met with silence. "I asked Mr. McMahon, I said, what's your plan?" Martin told the House committee. "Hearing none, I don't know if they had one."

Newell spent a decade on the border. As Operation Fast and Furious was unraveling, he insisted that his agents never allowed guns to "walk."

The statement angered many agents. "Literally, my mouth fell open," said Agent Larry Alt, who worked under Newell. "I am not being figurative about this. I couldn't believe it."

Newell has since acknowledged that "frequent risk assessments would be prudent" for operations like Fast and Furious. He also said the slaying of Terry "is one I will mourn for the rest of my life."

Voth supervised the crew of ATF agents under the operation. As they questioned the wisdom of allowing illegal purchases, he countered that because the weapons were turning up at Mexico crime scenes, cartel leaders had to be involved. He told his crew members they were "watching the right people."

His agents did not buy it.

"Whenever we would get a trace report back," said Agent John Dodson, Voth "was jovial, if not giddy, just delighted about that: Hey, 20 of our guns were recovered with 350 pounds of dope in Mexico last night. … To them it proved the nexus to the drug cartels. It validated that were really working a cartel case here."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20110816,0,7282744,print.story

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Controversial immigration enforcement program is target of lively protest

Speaker after speaker at the lively meeting denounced the Secure Communities program, with most not calling for changes but for the program to end entirely.

“I'm here asking the government to end this Secure Communities program,” said Blanca Perez, an undocumented worker who was arrested for selling ice cream from a cart on the street and then placed into deportation proceedings. “I am not a criminal, nor am I a bad person. I am simply a person who wants to work.”

Dozens walked out of the hearing at St. Anne's Residential Facility, shouting “terminate the program!” and calling on task force members to resign.

The task force was formed in response to growing criticism of the Department of Homeland Security enforcement program, which shares fingerprints collected by state and local police to help immigration authorities identify and deport tens of thousands of people each year.

The program, which was touted as a way to identify and deport convicted felons, has been criticized for also ensnaring minor offenders, victims of domestic abuse and other crimes, as well as witnesses to crimes and people who were arrested but not convicted of offenses.

The group of 20 has been asked to recommend ways for Secure Communities to “focus on individuals who pose a threat to public safety, national security or to the integrity of the immigration system,” according to the Department of Homeland Security. Its members include police and sheriff's officials, prosecutors, and immigration and community advocates. Two members – Arturo Venegas Jr., a retired Sacramento police chief, and Rosemary Welsh of Mercy Ministries of Laredo – were at the hearing to listen to testimony.

Although the task force was initially started to make recommendations about immigrants who were being deported for minor traffic offenses, Venegas said, several members have asked to broaden the scope.

“I know there's a lot of concern about racial profiling and people who are getting deported who were never intended to be classified under Secure Communities,” he said, “so we're taking whatever people have that's a concern to them.”

Several undocumented men and women who are in deportation proceedings spoke at the hearing. A woman who was arrested after she called to report domestic violence and several workers arrested when their office was raided during an investigation into the employer said they were placed in deportation proceedings following their arrests despite their charges being dropped.

Several elected officials including Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) sent representatives to read their messages at the hearing.

Anna Pembedjian, justice deputy for Antonovich, said the supervisor supports the program and that concerns voiced about immigration enforcement programs in the past have not emerged.

In his statement, Ammiano, who authored proposed legislation to modify Secure Communities, denounced the program. He called for an end to it and for members of the task force to resign “rather than giving this program or department any false legitimacy.”

The statement resonated strongly with many of those in the audience and people soon began shouting “terminate the program!” and “renuncia!” (“resign!”).

“I've heard this message,” Venegas told the audience. “But we have an opportunity to make a recommendation. Whether or not something will actually be done, I can't say. I'm not in charge of that.”

Several audience members walked out of the meeting but a few dozen remained to offer their testimony.

The Game's tweet leaves police asking how to call foul

Authorities wonder if legal action is possible after rapper's Twitter followers overwhelm Compton sheriff's station with calls. Some agencies are turning to social media to help prevent violence.

by Robert Faturechi and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

August 15, 2011

All it took was a tweet. A famous rapper's Twitter feed posted a phone number for the Compton station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, urging his more than half-million followers to call. Within seconds, every line on every phone at the station was jammed.

Legitimate emergency calls for help were blocked for almost three hours by a deluge of pranksters. Sheriff's officials denounced the tweet by The Game as irresponsible. But now authorities are facing a tough question: Should those who send tweets be held liable for the problems their messages cause?

A summer marked by riots in England and flash-mob violence in several American cities, including Philadelphia and Cleveland, has officials debating how much they should — and legally can — crack down.

Those involved in the looting and civil unrest around London used BlackBerry messages to organize, leading British Prime Minister David Cameron to suggest shutting down access to social media for anyone suspected of using it for criminal activity.

The Cleveland City Council went further after a large flash mob disrupted a Fourth of July fireworks display with violence, passing an ordinance that would have made it illegal to use social media to organize a violent and disorderly flash mob. The mayor eventually vetoed the measure, citing 1st Amendment concerns.

Officials at the Bay Area Rapid Transit District have taken perhaps the most controversial step. Faced with a large demonstration on a subway platform announced by social media to protest the police shooting of a knife-wielding man, BART last week shut down cellphone service at the station. Officials said their goal was to protect the safety of subway riders, but critics immediately blasted the transit agency, saying it encroached on their free-speech rights. New protests Monday shut down several BART stations.

Law enforcement has long dealt with unwieldy crowds, whether they are at protests, concerts or even celebrations like a Lakers' title victory. But Twitter and other social media have made it much easier to mobilize large crowds quickly, and police are struggling to keep up.

Some police departments are beginning to assign officers to monitor Facebook, Twitter and other sites in search of crime and also to understand how social media work.

"This one is so big and so fast and has so many branches to it, there are definitely some who feel overwhelmed by where to begin," said Sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker, an avid Twitter user who's become something of an online ambassador to other law enforcement agencies. "You have to trust your younger officers who were raised on it and think it's perfectly normal."

Legal experts say police face a delicate balance when cracking down on social media — and prosecutors must meet a high bar trying to show that irresponsible, even reckless, tweeting amounts to a crime.

As in any medium, if the message includes an explicit call for violence — say, a death threat — prosecution is more likely. "If I use skywriting, the law would be the same for that kind of thing," said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh.

But most cases aren't so clear cut. In the case of a celebrity tweeting the phone number of a law enforcement help line, Volokh said, prosecutors would have to prove the tweeter intended to jam the lines, either with a confession after the fact or with some sort of documented planning beforehand. That legal argument has been used against hackers who purposefully overwhelm an organization's website so legitimate users can't get through.

The Game may have been more legally protected had his tweet identified the number as the sheriff's line and encouraged his followers to call in with criticisms. That sort of political organizing would have free speech protection, Volokh said.

Often in high-profile Twitter mishaps, celebrities have blamed posts on a hacked account or a rogue staffer. After The Game's tweet, the rapper took to the Internet, blaming a friend for commandeering his account. Although certainly careless, Volokh said, a celebrity leaving his Twitter feed unattended is hardly a criminal act. The law is specific about when negligence is criminal.

For flash mobs, the guilty tweeter could be charged with organizing a demonstration without a permit. But as far as any mayhem that ensues, such as fighting, property damage or looting, the individual offenders, not the organizer, would be criminally liable, not the organizer, Volokh said,

"Just because you invite people to join you at some place, and they end up committing crimes doesn't mean at all that you're responsible for those crimes," he said.

As for The Game, whose real name is Jayceon Terrell Taylor, even the rapper has seemed surprised at the amount of negative attention one post can bring.

"I can see it now," he tweeted after the incident, imagining a jailhouse scene. "'What u in 4 homie..robbery. What about u dog...Murder. What u in here 4 game... (Pokes Chest Out) A TWEET'"

As The Game investigation continues, Los Angeles authorities are also trying to learn from Twitter to help defuse future problems.

Authorities were caught off guard last month when a disc jockey invited thousands of Twitter followers to a concert in Hollywood, causing a mini-riot that closed Hollywood Boulevard for hours. The Los Angeles city attorney's office is still determining what action to take against the disc jockey.

But LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith said his officers turned Twitter into an intelligence tool a few days later.

The LAPD noticed that word was spreading on Twitter that the Red Hot Chili Peppers would give an impromptu rooftop concert in Venice Beach. That prompted police to send more officers into the area to make sure the crowds didn't get too rowdy.

"It could have easily gotten out of control, but we got information from Twitter that allowed us to front-load officers down there, mitigate traffic and drinking, check permits and address the large crowd," Smith said. "If we weren't there when this started, it could have been a disaster."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0816-twitter-mob-20110816,0,1022164,print.story

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The anti-vaccination peril

Parents who refuse inoculations for their kids are putting other people's children at risk.

August 16, 2011

Contrary to what baby boomers might assume, the term "conscientious objector" didn't originate with the Vietnam War. It was first used in the late 19th century to describe opponents of England's mandatory smallpox vaccinations, who received special exemption from the inoculations.

Their opposition to the vaccine was as shortsighted, and as unfounded in science, as the objections of parents today who refuse to recognize the importance of inoculation not just to their children but to public health. As it happens, the popular embrace of the smallpox vaccine eradicated the deadly disease worldwide by the late 1970s. Shortly afterward, polio was eliminated in the United States after a decades-long immunization campaign.

Yet several other diseases — not as deadly as smallpox and polio but still capable of killing — have been making comebacks in recent years as increasing numbers of parents decide that vaccination is dangerous. It started with the now-discredited claims of a British doctor who published a faulty study purportedly showing a link between vaccines and autism.

As The Times has reported, there were nearly 9,500 cases of whooping cough last year in California alone, the most in 65 years. Cases of other diseases — measles and Hib -- are rising, though in far smaller numbers. Many measles cases are "imported" from countries where the disease is more prevalent, often by unvaccinated U.S. residents who return from foreign travel.

It would be one thing if these diseases affected only the children whose parents object to vaccines. But if those children get sick, they put many others at risk, including those who cannot be immunized for medical reasons, who don't respond to vaccines or who aren't old enough to be inoculated. (Of the 10 infants who died of whooping cough in California last year, nine were too young to have been vaccinated.) All of these children are endangered by the unfounded fears of a small minority of parents. Public health depends on "herd immunity" — the inoculation of enough people to keep a disease from the larger community.

Although children are supposed to receive most vaccinations before starting kindergarten, almost all states rightly allow exemptions for religious reasons or when a child has medical problems that make vaccination impossible. But 21 states, including California, also allow exemptions when parents declare that vaccination is contrary to their personal beliefs. According to the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, more exemptions for nonmedical reasons are granted in states that make allowances for personal beliefs or where the exemption process is particularly lax. States, including California, should be reexamining the personal belief exemption and tightening procedures. It should not be so easy for relatively few people to jeopardize the health of many others.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-vaccine-20110816,0,126666,print.story

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From Google News

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Tennessee

Memphis Police director to eliminate community action program, city official says

by Jody Callahan

August 15, 2011

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong plans to do away with the department's CO-ACT program, a city official confirmed Monday night.

CO-ACT, short for "Community Action," is a program created in 1994 to greater enhance the department's community policing efforts. It largely consists of substations assigned to various communities. According to MPD's website, there are 14 CO-ACT units spread across the city.

"It is part of his overall community policing plan to replace the existing CO-ACT units," said George Little, city chief administrative officer.

Since taking the job in April, Armstrong has emphasized community policing as a cornerstone of his administration. He is expected to put forth new plans on how to achieve that.

He couldn't be reached for comment Monday.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/15/mpd-eliminate-community-action-program-city-offici/?print=1

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Bill Bratton: How 'Supercop' cleaned up US cities

by Tom Geoghegan BBC News, Washington DC

When William Bratton became a police officer in Boston at the age of 23, it was the fulfilment of a childhood dream.

Television police shows like Dragnet had fired the young Bratton's imagination and in 1970, he at last entered those hallowed ranks.

British Prime Minister David Cameron was only four at the time, but 40 years later he is drawing on the wisdom of the American after nights of unrest in English towns and cities, despite opposition from senior British police officers.

Due to an illustrious career in which he has arguably transformed the fortunes of three of America's biggest police forces, the 63-year-old Mr Bratton has been dubbed "Supercop" in the UK media.

The phrase "zero tolerance" is not far behind, reinforcing the image of a no-nonsense, tough guy, much like the stereotype American "cop".

That British perception stems very much from his time in New York, when he transformed the fortunes of the city by taking a very hard line on petty crime.

Abiding principles

• Tackle low-level crime
  
  
• Get officers into streets engaging with residents
  
  
• Set targets and make police accountable
  
  
• Partnerships with judiciary and the public crucial
  
  
• Not about police numbers but how you use them

In an hour-long speech to the Policy Exchange think-tank in London last year - one of many visits to the UK - he said New York resembled a "Mad Max movie" in 1990, with aggressive beggars, muggings and graffiti-covered subway trains. It was the "poster boy" of a country in disarray.

Police had wrongly been obsessing about their response to crime, rather than preventing it, he said, and ignoring the "quality of life" issues that created fear in neighbourhoods.

Appointed by Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1994, he adopted the so-called broken windows theory that suggests tackling anti-social behaviour with a strong arm has huge benefits in preventing violent crime.

Life of Bratton

• 1947: Born in Boston
  
  
• 1970: Begins police career in home city
  
  
• 1980: Boston's youngest deputy chief at 32
  
  
• 1990: Leads New York's transit police department
  
  
• 1991-3: Heads Boston police
  
  
• 1994-6: New York police boss
  
  
• 2001-9: Los Angeles police chief

But he also fully embraced the community policing phenomenon that emerged in the late 1980s - the belief that police officers should engage with the public, be seen on the streets and join as partners with the judiciary and community organisations.

This dual approach, backed by the arrival of 5,000 newly trained officers, brought immediate results, with huge falls in crimes across the board, particularly murder.

He had fewer resources at his next big job, in Los Angeles, which presented a different challenge - gang violence in a smaller city spread over a larger geographical area.

The man who hired him was the mayor at the time, James Hahn. Now a judge at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, Mr Hahn recalls the bullish man he interviewed in 2001. "The rank and file at first was very suspicious of this outsider”

"He said in the interview that he would reduce crime by 25% or he would leave. Each year he would do something I have never seen a police chief do. He called them 'stretch goals' and he would say 'I'm going to reduce crime by, say, 15%.'

"Most people brag about it at the end of the year, but Bill would commit to this at the start of the year. And he would not only meet the targets but exceed them."

In three years, he reduced crime in the city by 40%, says Mr Hahn, but just as importantly, his honest leadership restored morale to a flagging department.

"We were losing officers faster than we could hire them. It wasn't a money problem, because they would go and work for other police departments with a better working atmosphere.

"The rank and file at first was very suspicious of this outsider who had not come up through the ranks but they came to respect him because he's a no-nonsense, plain-talking guy."

Community relations improved because he introduced a more diverse recruitment policy and the police were seen to be engaging with Hispanic and African-American communities.

There was criticism about the time he spent away from the city, at conferences in other parts of the country, but Mr Hahn says he didn't care because he got results.

"The thing I'm most proud of in my brief tenure as mayor was to reverse three years of rising crime, and Bill Bratton was the reason I achieved that goal."

And as a person, he's charming and fun to be around, says Mr Hahn, with a self-deprecating humour which the British will appreciate.

He appears to be a keen student of British policing, referring in the past to the "phenomenal wisdom" of Robert Peel, who he says shaped his thinking. And he has expressed a strong interest in the vacant position running the Metropolitan Police, although it is only open to Britons.

In his own words

"The Met is having its share of issues and leadership crises, certainly. It is a mirror image of when I went into the NYPD and LAPD, and both those cities turned out quite well. I've been an outsider in every department I've worked in. Bureaucrats change processes, leaders change culture. I think of myself as a transformational leader who changes cultures." - Bill Bratton speaking to the Guardian, August 2011

An interview with the Guardian newspaper this week suggests he himself would prefer to emphasise his community-building skills, rather than his zero-tolerance methods.

But his critics say his reputation is burnished by the fact that long-term crime trends in the US have been falling anyway, for a number of reasons.

One of the country's leading criminologists, Professor Alfred Blumstein, prefers to give Mr Bratton credit, saying the drop in New York crime was greater than elsewhere and he repeated the trick in LA during a period when crime nationally was pretty flat.

"I've developed a high regard for Bill Bratton. He brought some important innovations to New York, including the highly regarded and widely replicated Compstat management system.

"That system used fast-response computerised information on crime to hold precinct commanders for reducing crime in their precincts, and that management shift was an important contributor to lowering crime rates in New York."

His restructuring of the ethnic composition of the police department in Los Angeles and improving community relations there shows he can tailor his skills to different problems, says Mr Blumstein.

"That wisdom and those skills will allow him to bring important insights to policing in the UK.

"Also, he's a very low-key individual, so I'm confident he won't come roaring in as a Mr Know-it-all, which would certainly be a serious turn-off in the highly respected Scotland Yard.

"I've talked to him about various aspects of crime and criminology and there's always a very open atmosphere in dealing with him. He's not like a Supercop."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14536173

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